ID help with engraved token....

savoyspecial

any help with identity or translation on token itself or the engraved name would be appreciated.......

name appears to be IOHAN (Johan) GERLACI or perhaps GERLACJ

JimK

some abbreviations on there but it is German....
Zeit= time
erb= inherit
Wein= wine
undt= old German for 'and'
Fass or Faß= barrel
los penning= loosely penning?

Don't know how much that helps but it might be a start.
Jim

JimK

Here's another similar one, from Cologne...
Link

Freizeichen der Fassbinderzunft= Free character of the barrel binder guild

Jim

WillieBoyd2

I found one like it here:



http://www.muenzauktion.com/stollhoff/item.php5?id=3864&ref=preisroboter

One sold on Ebay recently:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110512467154

savoyspecial

that last link you provided, being of course where i picked the token up.......thanks for the info so far everyone!

TokenTinker

Greg - The side that says "The Brewer" has incuse stars positioned in such a way that I'm reminded of a beer barrel being tapped and broached. I don't know if old Johan Gerlaci intended this but it's a nice subliminal advertising trick. The other token is monogrammed differently, for a different merchant but also shows an incuse broaching depiction between the initials. These are certainly guild "Lospenning" or lesser "Halfpenny" tokens.

The Guild that issued them for their members employed two languages (English & German) on the reverse and apparently only one - German - on the obverse (the side with the goats, grape vines and masonic symbology). I can't say which dialect of German it is. The name Gerlaci doesn't suggest it's from a northern region but "The Brewer" makes it clear that England was a primary market. The obverse reads ONE FRUIT WINE AND BARREL "AMBTS" HALFPENNY. AMBTS is an abbreviation for something - ticklish there, whatever it may be. That word is likely key as it identifies either the intended use of the token or the veracity of it. I doubt it stands for - say - Amsterdam. Amts- could be a prefix for anything designated as an official issuance and may be more the mark (pun intended) AMBTS could also signify "Office," "department" or "branch." It does not stand for "trade" or "exchange" or (insert speculative comment here). Because of the use of the abbreviation "AMBTSMR" on the reverse I'm prone to think this is some designation like "Ambassadorial" - which would make it a "calling" or "business" card in the form of a copper token.

Considering the two years of issue our two specimens show I'd say that the guild was acting to reassure some uncertainties of the market in cross-channel trade. The wars of Spanish Succession and the breakdown of spanish rule in Holland would have made serious chaos in currency exchange rates. Likewise - provincial and merchant issues from the new Dutch confederations would have been suspect even inside the low country. England also was dealing with the chaos of succession to it's throne. The act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 didn't make everything hunky-dorey. By 1715 England was dealing with a major Jacobite uprising and the threat of Jacobite resurgence didn't end with the defeat of the Scots in '15. The Stuarts continued to introduce their own claims and currencies in the British Isles for another 41 years. The frequency of Gun Money and raw fakes must have unnerved continental traders when dealing with the Brits. This piece would seem to be a response to doubts on both sides of the channel as to the dependability of the currency or credit of a deal.

I'd suggest that "IO A B V HECK" on the obverse legend stands for "Johan" A B (whoever those initials refer to) Von or Van Heck. We're back to Holland and the North Country on this one. Perhaps Johan Gerlaci was an associated merchant using the Von or Van Heck house for commercial Trade with England. That would make sense. It would also make sense that he'd have a German or Dutch first name and an Italian Last name if his family had resettled in Holland from Genoa or one of the other Italian city states. Genoa had strong trade ties in the low countries and it would have been a coup for an Italian firm to have membership in a Dutch Guild. Likewise the upheaval of the time could have upset the normalcy of trade links to Italy. Get where the getting is good.

After all that droll I'd just like to say I REALLY LIKE THIS PIECE! It's a wonderful puzzle. We just need to identify one Heck of a trading house.
Bravo!

TokenTinker

The Dutch Van Heck or Van Hecke family had extensive trade contacts over the centuries and were members of the Dutch East India Company. One Van Heck was responsible for introducing Opium cultivation in Dutch Indonesia in the 19th century. While the name would originally refer to a locale the city of Bruges pops up in relation to the surname frquently. This would support the Genoese connection as Genoa had extensive trade and banking interests in Bruges. Curiosity leads on.

lordmarcovan

I'm glad you won that!

I'm proud to say that it was I who pointed that piece out to him. I stumbled across it in my search for love token Seated dimes. He often points out nice love tokens to me and I point out nice engraved pieces or counterstamps to him. It is a good symbiotic relationship, since we're collecting along similar but not identical lines- we're brothers in exonumia but there's enough difference in our quests that there's little competition. It's fun to have a close buddy whose collection runs along such a parallel track like that.

I must confess that pieces like this tempt me terribly to slide even further down that slippery slope into pure, random exonumia. I'm lovin' the love tokens, with their individual, one of a kind artwork. It's made me develop an appreciation for other hand-engraved pieces, like this.

Good pickup! Hopefully my scoping it out for you pays you back for all the times you've pointed out the nicer love tokens to me.

JimK

I found a birth record for a: Joannes Gerlaci (Joannes, Johann, Johannes- same thing)
Christening: 09 Dec 1653 Sankt Paul Katholisch, Koeln Stadt, Rheinland
Parents: Georgii Gerlaci and Mechtildis Rosen

All the rest of the Gerlaci's were born in either Rheinland or Westphalia (mostly in Cologne and Moselkern) and a few in Holland.

I wonder if this is the same guy, he would have been 60 in 1713

Jim

also, 'ger' = spear in German, perhaps this name is mispelled version of Gerlach which is the 192nd most common German surname

lordmarcovan

JimK and TokenTinker- y'all have knocked me out with the info posted here.

And JimK- how'd you find that- Ancestry.com, or something? Amazing. It sounds like you might have just tracked down this long-dead coin-engraving individual in time and space... which makes my head spin.

Maybe it's just me, but I get off on stuff like that. History can really speak, sometimes.

TokenTinker

Rob - you seem a most kind man. I can see why Greg and you get along.
If you like tangential trivia then savor this almost totally unrelated tidbit (unrelated except for a vague connection to the Van Heck's, the first name Johan, the 17th century and the topic of MONEY) - I came across this gentleman amidst a binge of curiosity. This is from Wikipedia - You've got to love it. JOHAN PALMSTRUCH

Johan Palmstruch (1611 in Riga – 1671; named Johan Wittmacher before he was ennobled) was a Dutch merchant credited with the introduction of paper money to Europe. He became a commissioner in the National Board of Trade after his arrival in Sweden in 1647 and began submitting proposals for banking institutions to King Charles X Gustav in the 1650s. The first two such proposals were rejected but the third, which promised half the bank's profits to the crown, was accepted.

Stockholms Banco was thus founded in 1657 with Palmstruch appointed as general manager. The bank itself was nothing new as it was simply an imitation of the successful public deposit banks of Amsterdam and Hamburg, however Palmstruch himself added two important innovations. The first of these was to use money deposited into accounts at the bank to finance loans, however this soon became a problem as the deposits were usually short-term and the loans long-term, meaning that deposited money was unavailable to be withdrawn by account holders. Palmstruch's second innovation, and his solution to this problem, was the introduction in 1661 of Kreditivsedlar ("credit paper"), the first European banknotes, which would be exchangeable at any time for the metal coins they were replacing. These were very successful, but the bank began lending more than it could afford and printed too many banknotes without the necessary collateral, leading to the bank's collapse in 1668.

Palmstruch was charged with irresponsible book-keeping and with not having the cash to repay these credit notes due to miscalculation and omissions in his book-keeping. He was unable to make up this shortage and in 1668 was sentenced to loss of his title, loss of his banking privilege, and eternal exile or death. The government reprieved the death penalty and Palmstruch was instead imprisoned. He remained in prison until 1670 and died the following year at the age of 60.

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And we still rely upon these very same "innovations"!

JimK

This is getting really interesting (to me anyway)

Here is another reference to a similar token:
Belgium, /AE,
dynasty: Antwerp
issuer: Wine & Beer Merchants guild
obverse type: coat of arms
obverse legend: EIN ERB WEIN VNDT FASS AMBTS LOSPENNING
reverse legend: AMBISMRZ ZEIT H THE BREWER & IO A B VHECK: PETER THEISEN

It appears this is a Guild token and the name in the center is quite possibly the current head or leader of the guild. Something else, ambts translates to 'office' in Dutch so perhaps the guild met in Holland or Belgium but consisted of German, Belgian, Dutch etc. members who traded in Beer and Wine (and perhaps barrelmaking which was big in those days for transport)
It could also be that guild members were simply given this token and freehanded their name or initials on them...
Very cool also that I actually have a Peter Theis in my ancestry (I know, not the same guy) and this family was from just south of Cologne.
I have also found a reference to a similar token with the name Wilhel Gunner.

Rob, I've been doing Genealogy for some ten years now, I found the record on the LDS Library site and German surname distribution I do using Geogen .
Interesting stuff to say the least.
Jim

edited to remove smiley

engraved

Very cool token. There were quite a few Dutch guild badges and tokens in the 1700s, but I don't know too much about them.

savoyspecial

thanks everyone!


excerpted from TokenTinker's text:
"These were very successful, but the bank began lending more than it could afford and printed too many banknotes without the necessary collateral, leading to the bank's collapse........."


at least we'll never make that mistake again

Aethelred

What, no pigs?

savoyspecial

Michael,

you refer to this little ham no doubt:






the single pig stamp (from Brunk):

Aethelred

Greg, have you consulted the great 17th Century reference on this topic:

"Bovinus Numismatica" by Sir Francis Bacon

TokenTinker

From THE WHEELS of COMMERCE, by Fernand Braudel
"In the first place, all small transactions in the retail trade were effected in base coinage (buying food from peasants on the market place for instance) and all wages of day labourers and artisans were paid in the same. As Montanari said in 1680, base coinages were 'per uso della plebe che spende a minuto e vive a lavoro giornaliere' for the common people who spend small sums and live by daily labor.
---
"What merchants and other rich people did was quite simple: they returned any billon they received to circulation, keeping only the valuable coins whose purchasing power was very much greater than their official equivalent in base or 'black money' as it was called. Advice given to a cashier by a trading manual of 1638 was: 'In any payment he makes, let him reach out for the currency in lowest esteem at the time.' And he should of course collect as much as possible of the higher coinage. This was the policy adopted by Venice, which regularly disposed of its billon, sending it by the ton to its island in the Levant. The Spanish merchant of the 16th century operated a transparent strategem; they brought copper to be coined at the mint in Cuenca in New Castile and advanced this money to the master weavers of the town who needed it to buy the raw materials for their workshops; the merchants specified that repayment must be in silver coins, in the fairs and towns where the craftsmen went to sell their cloth. In Lyon in 1574, brokers were forbidden not only to 'go in search of goods to corner them', but also to 'go 'round hostelries or private houses buying silver and gold coins at prices of their own choice'. In Parma in 1601, attempts were made to put a stop to the activities of the money-changers, the bancherotti, who were accused of collecting gold pieces and removing them from circulation, exchanging them for base and low-quality coinage. And foreign merchants, especially the Dutch, were said to proceed as follows in France in 1647: '...They send to their correspondents and commission agents specie from their own country, which is much debased or certainly of poorer metallic content than ours. And they use this money to buy our merchandise, keeping the best of our coins to send home.' "

TokenTinker

Here's a link for a Modern Lublin Medal